quotes from “Faith & Ecstasy”
By Nicholas Schmidle
Smithsonian
December 2008

Sufism is not a sect, like Shiism or Sunnism, but rather the mystical side of Islam — a personal, experiential approach to Allah, which contrasts with the prescriptive, doctrinal approach of fundamentalists like the Taliban. It exists throughout the Muslim world (perhaps most visibly in Turkey, where whirling dervishes represent a strain of Sufism), and its millions of followers generally embrace Islam as a religious experience, not a social or political one. Sufis represent the strongest indigenous force against Islamic fundamentalism…

The “four friends”… taught Sufism [in the early 13th century]. They eschewed fire-and-brimstone sermons, and rather than forcibly convert those belonging to other religions, they often incorporated local traditions into their own practices… Qalander [one of the four friends] “played the role of integrator,” says Ghulam Rabbani Agro, a Sindhi historian who has written about Qalander. “He wanted to take the sting out of religion.” …

I hadn’t been able to find a clear, succinct definition of Sufism anywhere, so I asked [Rohail] Hyatt for one. “I can explain to you what love is until I turn blue in the face. I can take two weeks to explain everything to you,” he said. “But there is no way I can make you feel it. Sufism initiates that emotion in you. And through that process, religious experience becomes totally different: pure and absolutely nonviolent.”